To What Extent Was The Interwar Years Of 1918-1939

“This is not peace. It is armistice for twenty years”; these are the words of General Marshall Foch, a French war hero after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The outbreak of the First World War had changed Europe fundamentally, disrupting Europe economically, politically, psychologically, and socially, especially causing a sense of disillusionment in Europeans that shaped new ideologies, deposed empires, and destroyed old certainties and beliefs. The interwar period —the period of years, that separated the first and second world wars —is an immensely interesting period of study. An era of highlights and lowlights as European statesmen worked toward the development of a post-WWI society; where pacifism and isolationism replaced militarism and imperialism. An era where organizations like the League of Nations united the world, yet extremely divided as the new ideologies of fascism and communism took hold in powerful European states.
This paper evaluates to what extent were the interwar years of 1918-1939, only a twenty-year armistice, by analysing elements of continuity propagated by the outcome of the First World War in European states, politics, and